Adigeon Prime
by RisingWinter
Summary: Everything started at Adigeon Prime, Bashir knew that, but it took until his time at Starfleet to find out why. Introspective oneshot on Bashir, detailing some of the choices he made.


I do not own Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

It started with needles, so many needles and hyposprays. His arms had lost all feeling, they stabbed almost straight through so often. The pictures they showed him swam before his eyes, all logic refusing to register in his muddled brain.

"It is all right," they would say, voices thick with an alien accent that didn't quite filter through his translator. "You will get it. Be patient."

He didn't remember when it stopped hurting his head to review the same concepts over and over and over again, but he did remember that for a time, he _hated_ living rooms.

Because the test room looked so much like the one they had on Earth.

They put him through exercises, small steps, both physical and mental. His body grew fluid under his control and after the first week, his eyes cleared to recognize the pictures they showed him, but he refused to cooperate until they allowed his parents to sit in on at least one test.

The second week went from labeling dogs and cats and giraffes to finding the volume of a three-dimensional object. The first month, he learned to recognize the basics of chemistry, history, and temporal mechanics. His parents were thrilled and the few times he saw them, they praised his progress and his learning.

After the first month, he begged his parents to take him back to earth. He wanted to go home again and he wanted to talk to his old friends and family. They refused and tried to convince him that he was going to become even better, that he would be much happier once they'd finished their stay.

They had to tie him down tighter after that.

During one particularly long operation, he noticed that there weren't so many needles. It had turned to hyposprays with the occasional stab from a too-lone needle.

It was well into three months before they finally told him he was ready to go. The day was well-etched into his mind, and by far the clearest of his entire stay.

"We have stabilized his pathways and… smoothed out his most recently enhanced sections. Our monitors haven't shown any unusual activity these past few weeks, so I believe I can tell you that he shouldn't act out too… strangely when he returns."

His parents could barely contain themselves. They hugged him and thanked them and all but rushed to the shuttle that would take them home.

"Come, Jules!" his mother exclaimed. "Now you can finally show everyone what you are truly capable of!"

"Going to leave the rest of them in his dust, he is." Even his father's usually-gruff voice breathed quick and light with relief. "What do you think, hm? Top student within his first week, I expect, eh, Jules?"

He kept his gaze fixed ahead, wanting instead to just tune them out and rush off on his own, to find somewhere he could lock himself alone in. He couldn't remember the last time he didn't have someone right next to him, watching every move, monitoring every reflex. "I just want to go home," he admitted quietly for the first time in a month.

"Whatever you want, kid!"

"It's true, Jules!" his mother said. "Anything you want to do, anything you want to have you can now! You could be the greatest pianist in the Galaxy, a Starfleet pilot, a _captain_ , even! Imagine that! No test is going to keep him back, now, Richard. What about becoming a gymnast, son?"

"I was actually thinking tennis," his father said. "What do you think?"

He'd thought it was just a dark and cruel school. When did they teach him how to play tennis or the piano?

Confused, he said nothing.

* * *

"Hey, Bashir!" Crowley's voice called down the sun-lit halls of Starfleet Academy to where Julian rested in a large chair with his PADD. "Whatcha doin'?"

Julian made no move to acknowledge his classmate's presence until he was right up next to him. "Just, uh, admiring my old records."

"Whoa, man. I had no idea you did such a number on your pre-Starfleet tests. Why didn't you tell me you were top of your class?"

"I didn't realize I was…" Julian flipped to his earliest records. "Too busy to notice, I suppose."

"That would certainly do it." Crowley said, lips curling in disgust. "I swear, people like you... Pretending studying and school is actually fun."

"Right back at you."

He laughed at that and made a half-hearted grab for the PADD. "Come on, man. You're already in the academy, let it go. We're having a party at _Suzanne Lester's_ house tonight." He winked as Julian easily dodged the attempted thievery. "You know you want to come."

"Sure," Julian breathed, the earliest numbers he could find filling his view. "Just let me…" he flicked to another page, "… do something first."

"Whoa, dude. You've gotta be smoother than that if you want to have any hope of catching her attention. I'll try to get in a good word for you, eh?"

"You do that." Memories of laughter rang through his mind. "You do that."

"Don't strain yourself, man."

Strained sighs, a ghost of a reminder. He didn't remember doing so well before his private tutoring… why were his grades so impressive? His first school after Adigeon was when his grades really started impressing his teachers.

What exactly did they do?

He quickly parted with Crowley, who spared a couple teasing words before he had to disappear for his next class.

With his free hour, instead of melding with the books in the medical section of the library, he took a detour to the computers to look up the official records for all available _Julian Bashir_ s. Narrowing the list down to only the ones that could be tied to him, he zeroed in on a child in some preschool in London.

 _Authorization required to access private records of Julian Subatoi Bashir._

He leaned back, running a hand through his too-short hair. As some students passed, he opened a new file to imitate homework. He had upset his parents – disappointed them. He remembered that much.

He typed idly into the document he had opened, streaming his consciousness onto the file in complete gibberish. As soon as the students passed, he gave up and closed both the records and the file and decided to use the last half hour of his time to browse books. Most of the relevant sources he'd already half-memorized and all that was left was optional reading when it came to the entrance exam for Starfleet Medical.

 _Parallels Between the Human Body and the Machine,_ by Noonian Soong, the only one in his name, and just behind that, _Victory of the Eugenics War: A Look Beyond Survival_ by Arik Soong. The latter had several books in his section, most of them variants of the same topic.

Why not? Julian logged them both onto his pad and went ahead to his next class.

Temporal Mechanics passed uneventfully, with the teacher droning on about the effect of stable time loops and predestination paradoxes. When he finally retired to his dorm, greeting his unconscious roommate with barely a nod, he set down to bring up his books.

* * *

He was sure to call when he knew they wouldn't be available to answer, since he knew that if they did, he would lapse into a raging torrent of disappointment. Did they really consider him _broken_ enough that they had to have him _fixed_?

 _This is Julian calling from Starfleet. Everything's going well, my grades are staying well above average and well below_ inhuman _percentages. I think I'll make it through just fine. I read some interesting books on bio augmentation and the legality and dangers of it. You might be interested. Though I suppose they might be a little dated…_

It didn't take much to get his hands on the right clearance to access his old, un-falsified records once he was in the protection of his dorm room. Curiosity about his dead cousin, who passed away in a tragic accident. Anniversary coming up and all, he was just wanting to know a couple of things before he wrote his annual letter. No one dared pry into such a sensitive topic and Julian hated himself just a little for taking advantage of the staff's absolute trust in one of their top students.

To ease his guilt, he got the rest of the data through some old-style hacking.

Now, as he sat at his desk, his studies forgotten beside him, he decided to add just a touch of credit to the story.

 _Jules,_ he wrote, _I'm sorry the operation didn't go so well and I wish I could have been there at least to support you. It still plagues me. I remember the other children teased you for your inability to keep up with them, but I know you were just… busy. You weren't stupid. The teachers may have given up on you, and your parents had been disappointed, but you still had so much-_

Mouth twisting into a grimace, he touched his finger to the corner of the screen and confirmed the _delete?_ command.

It was all false anyway.

A tone rattled through the room, startling Julian back to reality. He hefted his com in hand while the image of Crowley danced onto the screen, the background a chaotic mess of loud music and bouncing students. "Hey, Bashir! Where are you?"

"Studying." He clicked the com off again and got back to his desk. The passage he was supposed to be reading swam into a blur of words before him. If he could focus, it would take only ten minutes to finish preparing for the mid-term a whole month away.

He shoved the PADD away, moving to his bed. With a single word the lights went out and he left himself to the darkness of the late night.

* * *

The Medical Academy was a nightmare. Having firmly resolved not to draw suspicion, every test was a hair-pulling, unholy balance of doing well enough to rank himself high, but not so much that he raised eyebrows. Each night afterwards proved sleepless as he fretted that the higher ups wouldn't notice his progress or, worse, that they would. If he didn't do well enough, he wouldn't make the ranks high enough to get out onto the good ships, like the _Enterprise._ If he did too well…

He preferred not to think about that too hard.

Racquetball was the only thing he could safely enjoy, as he could finally let loose with no one the wiser.

Graduation was the biggest relief he had ever experienced. He was praised for his promise and his accomplishments, with no one the wiser. His parents were proud, though the unspoken truth was that they wished he had let himself pull just a little further ahead. Salutatorian wasn't quite enough for them – they expected him to achieve Valedictorian.

It was that night that he found out about Deep Space Nine.

When he chose his assignment aboard Deep Space Nine, a decision not entirely uninfluenced by the distance it put between them, his parents still showered him with acclamation for his "bravery" and "ambition."

When he first stepped onto the station, he found that it was no less than cozy. He knew from the moment he saw it that he would learn to grow quite comfortable with the dark metal bulkheads and alien technology. He didn't hesitate in showing his enthusiasm to his new co-workers, whom he recognized as being less-than-pleased with him. It took a few months to finally pinpoint why.

"You talk too much."

Julian swiveled in his chair to face O'Brien. "Really?"

"Really."

One more question answered. He'd wondered why his plans to get on the good side of his friends often led to the opposite effect. Often, he felt like something _had_ to go wrong for him to get his way.

And then he remembered that yes, of course something was wrong.

That was the whole reason his family took him to Adigeon Prime, after all.

* * *

A/N: _Found this after going through some old works, and I liked it enough to go ahead and clean it up for posting. We could always use some more love for Bashir._


End file.
